3. TIL of Jeremiah Horrocks who died 23 years old, was the only person to predict t...

TIL of Jeremiah Horrocks who died 23 years old, was the only person to predict the transit of Venus in front of the sun in 1639, and one of only two people in the world to witness it, possibly the first two ever, and likely the first in 600+ years.

While googling what planets can pass between us and the sun due to having installed a rather cool animated Opera wallpaper found here I happened upon his wiki entry from a cool picture on the main Venus transit page. As usual I check how old people get, turns out ...only 23. Damn.

Imagine, you're 21 years old. You're a math and astronomy fan. You read a bunch of old books and you're the only person in the entire world to figure out that a planet will pass in front of the sun in your lifetime and you know how to observe and record it with your buddy. The two of you are the only ones who do, and prove it. The only ones reliably documented at the time to have ever done so, and the previous possible dude lived over 600 years before.

Nuts.

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